THE STORY - INTERESTS OF CHILDHOOD
This section is from STORIES AND STORY- TELLING IN MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION BY EDWARD PORTER ST. JOHN, an old out of copyright book. It needs lots of editing and updating, and to be expanded to general application. Wouldst thou know how to teach the child ? Observe him, and he will show you what to do. — Friedrich Froebel. The spontaneous interests of children become the dominant factors in education, whether they are recognized or not. — George E. Dawson. Interest is the signboard pointing the direction in which edu¬cation must proceed. — M. F. O'Shea. Anyone can put in everything. It is only the born story¬teller, or the one who will sit down by the side of a child and patiently observe the points that the child sees and likes to hear, that can be trusted to put in and leave out just the right points. — Falter L. Hervey. Children are much less influenced in their choice of ideals than is popularly supposed. Their choices seem to come from the real fibers of their nature. — Fill Grant Chambers. If we would but take advantage of the normal interests and introduce them to the lives of the men and women who have made history, the results obtained would be more in proportion to the time and energy spent. — E. B. Bryan. When such a selection of heroes has been made, their characters, deeds, and sayings may become the media through which the children shall be taught Hebrew history and geography, moral and religious principles, and anything else that the Old Testament can supply for purposes of religious instruction. — George E. Dawson. With the great, one's thoughts and manners easily become great — what this country longs for is personalities, grand persons, to counteract its materialities. —Ralph Waldo Emer¬son. The books for our boys must be wholesome, manly, and vigorous; clean in the warp and woof; books which excite to noble deeds without preaching and which present character worthy of emulation. —Daniel C. Heath. EVERY good teacher, though he be untrained in the schools, shrinks from boring his pupils, for he instinc¬tively recognizes interest as the most characteristic ele¬ment in the mental attitude of the learner. The old disciplinary conception of education, whose spirit Mr. Dooley sets forth in the statement that "It don't make any difference what ye teach children, provided they don't like it," has lost favor among modern educators. This is not from any sentimental softness, but because of the scientific discovery that interest is nature's pro¬vision that children may learn the things that they most need to know. It has been found that certain interests are common to practically all children, and that particular ones are characteristic of particular stages of development. These spontaneous interests are not to be lightly regarded, for they are instinctive expressions of the needs of the child's nature. They differ at different periods of life because the needs of the infant, the boy or girl, and the youth or maiden are not the same. This conception of the meaning of interest, which has been well established by investigations in child- study and kindred branches of psychology, has not only won the favor of many who in the past ignored it, but has changed the attitude of some who formerly valued it as an aid in the teaching process. No longer is the aim simply to make the lesson interesting, perhaps by finking with it in a purely artificial way something to which the child's attention naturally goes out: now the teacher seeks to understand the natural interests of the child, and td shape the lesson from the material and the relations that are thus indicated as the ones that nature would use to prepare the unfolding life for the experiences that are before it. It is from this point of view that we must approach the study of the storv-interests of the child. Mani¬festly the attitude of the listener toward the story that is told is of the greatest importance to the teacher. The child's spontaneous interests not only facilitate the assimilation of the lesson, but also give definite clues to the selection of the truth to be taught and the form which the lesson should take. With this psycho¬logical principle in mind we may note the kinds of stories that are particularly interesting at various ages. The teacher who selects stories of child life for children of the kindergarten and primary grades is not in error, for both common observation and scientific study testify that young children are especially interested in the doings of others of about their own age. Dr. Daw¬son's study confirms this general conclusion in special relation to the stories of the Bible. While the Old Testament stories are in the main most interesting to children under nine years of age, there appears a special interest in the stories of the birth of Jesus. The stories of the infancy of Moses and of the childhood of Samuel are also among the chief favorites of the younger chil¬dren. One has but to glance at the successful collections of stories for children of this age to see how fully the editors of juvenile literature have reacted to this attitude of thechild. In the Bible stories mentioned above there are elements that are quite foreign to the common experiences of the child, but nevertheless it is wholly probable that the child's chief interest in stories of this type centers not so much in the unusual as in the familiar elements. It is the life of a child, the very life that he knows best, that the child wishes to see portrayed. By nature's plan he is now following very closely in the footsteps of the ancestors who have gone before him. It is in early adolescence, when he most nearly breaks with the past of the race as well as with his parents' control, that he needs the exceptional and sensational to spur him on to do the deeds that have never yet been done. The very well known interest of young children in myths, fairy-tales, and folk-tales brings no contra¬dictory evidence here, for it is not the supernatural or marvelous element in these stories that appeals to the mind of the child. Rather he hardly realizes its presence. He does not yet live in a world of law, and these things are like the every-day happenings of his own life. The real interest is rather that which has been mentioned above, for all the fairies, witches, gnomes, and giants that appear in these kinds of literature are really but children masquerading in other forms. The morals of these stories are of a naive and childish sort; all the clever strategy is such as a child would devise, and such as would deceive no one but himself. The real value of the unnatural or supernatural element, as has been indicated in a previous chapter, is that it provides the machinery for a poetic justice which will be clearly appreciated by the child. It will help to solve some of the lesser problems of the Sunday-school teacher of young children if she will remember that "wonder stories" are not wonder stories for them. The presence of the miraculous ele¬ment in the Bible stories need hardly be considered by the kindergartner. To the child in her class nothing is a mirade, or everything is a miracle as you choose to put it. That Jesus could walk upon the water is not stranger than that the fishes can swim beneath its sur¬face; that He could multiply the loaves and fishes is as natural as that the grocer should be able to supply our wants from day to day. Another marked interest of young children is in the natural objects about them, and especially in living creatures. Kittens, dogs, squirrels, birds, insects make a fascinating appeal to their attention, and plants, stars, clouds, and winds really stir the same kind of interest, for the child endows them all with life and feelings like his own. It is because of this animistic tendency of the child that stories of the persevering rain-drop and benevolent sunbeam kind do not repel him as they do his older brother or sister who has reached the junior department of the Sunday-school. Doubtless the personification of natural objects is often overdone, and sometimes the habit is a lazy one and leads to the missing of facts that are more interesting and more significant than the teacher's fiction, but commonly no great harm is done if the practise is not carried beyond the kindergarten period. The chief value of the use of such stories is perhaps in the variety that they afford. The fresh forms attract, but the deeper interest is in life like his own. A promi¬nent writer on the kindergarten has called attention to the fact that young children sympathize more deeply with the woes and joys of the lower animals than they do with those of men and women. This is doubtless because the former are much nearer the level of his own feeling life than are those of adult human beings. Among all the types of stories that please young chil¬dren it is found that those which are most concrete, which deal most with action and with things, make the strongest appeal. Subtle analysis of character has no place with children. The witches and giants must be wholly bad, and the heroes and heroines must be con¬ventionally good. Under such circumstances the savage justice that so frequently appears does not offend. The plot should be very simple, and the story should move swiftly and directly to its necessary end. Surprises are always appreciated, provided they do not obscure the straightforward simplicity that has just been urged, but mystification is not to be tolerated here. To sum¬marize in general terms, childlikeness, concreteness, sim¬plicity, and directness are the qualities that appeal. When we turn to the children who have passed from the stage of early childhood to that of prepubescence, those who are between eight or nine and about twelve years of age, we find that the interests have changed to a very considerable extent. One of the characteristic changes in the child's mental life is the rapidly develop¬ing sense of law and the rather prosaic and matter-of-fact spirit that accompanies it. It finds manifestation in the changed attitude toward fairy-tales and other imagina¬tive literature which seems untrue to fact. Reality and the simplest beginnings of causality have a meaning and stir his interest as they did not before. Nature provides that the young child, living so largely on the plane of instinct, shall seek that which will give culture to his emotional life, and, outside of the needs of his material life, he pays small attention to questions of reality or fact, for to him they have not large importance. Now she deals, in the older child, with more highly developed feelings which have grown up in the race in connection with the perception of cause and effect and the reign of uniform law, and at her bidding the child turns from the world of fancy to that of fact. Tell him a story and he will ask, "Is it true ? " And whether you use the story to illustrate a principle or to stir his emotional life it will have a larger influence if you can tell him that it is. Besides this new interest in the real and true there is an increasing development of interest in the activities and achievements of adult life. This is an expression of the fact that nature no longer permits him to be sat¬isfied with life that is lived only in to-day, but wakes the thought of a future that does not seem too far away to be of present importance. This suggests the use of stories from biography and history and from the ex¬periences of the teacher and his acquaintances. To all of these the child gives ready response if they are well selected and well told. Two other traits that characterize this period of the child's life are significant here. The first of these is the selfishly utilitarian spirit with which the child views the world about him. "What is the good to me ? "is the almost universal test. The second is the desire to know and the readiness with which he stores away facts for future use. While interests mentioned above suggest the form, these hint at the desirable content of the tales that are now to be told. For the most part an egoistic morality, one that demonstrates that it pays to do right, and that it does not pay to do wrong, should be exem¬plified in these stories. And much of information can be tactfully conveyed without overloading with details or weakening the story's moral power. Indeed the most of Biblical antiquities that it is wise to present can be taught through the use of Bible stories, and chiefly in the junior department of the Sunday-school. In spite of the development of the sense of law two forms of idealistic stories are of value here. Legends have a considerable element of fact and form the natural link that joins fairy-tale and myth with the historic stories. Fables, perhaps, are never more effective than through these years. They are always recognized as fiction, but they set forth in a picturesque way those simple and selfish moral principles that the child is with delight discovering for himself. Dr. Dawson's study shows that the dominant interests through these years of the child's life are in the Old Testa¬ment stories, and these meet most of the specifications mentioned above. The miraculous element, if presented as miracle, that is, as departure from natural law through divine power, rarely raises any difficulties. Such doubt comes later, after the adolescent has gained a larger grasp of nature's laws and of God's ways of working through them. In case of the young child the story acts through sug¬gestion by making the conduct which is desired appear attractive; in the older boy and girl its chief value is in setting forth a moral law: in case of each the natural interests point the way to success. STORY-INTERESTS OF ADOLESCENCE IN adolescence, as in childhood, spontaneous inter¬ests give a clue to vital needs. A knowledge of the un¬folding life serves to emphasize the significance of the natural tastes and gives many hints as to the philoso¬phy of nature's plans for the informal education of the youth. Adolescence is the period of life lasting approximately from twelve to twenty-four years of age. It may be subdivided into three stages which are quite clearly differentiated, and each of which has its peculiar tastes and interests. The first of these stages covers about the first four years of the period; the second extends about three years further; and the last completes the period preceding maturity. In the mental life the most marked characteristic of the whole period is the rapid growth of the conscious¬ness of selfhood in the individual, and of the relations of that newly discovered self to others. The impulse to realize one's own personality is at first instinctive, and its meaning is not understood by the youth, but gradually it comes into clear consciousness and becomes a definite aim. In the first stage the emotional attitude may be said to be egoistic, in the second, ego-social, and in the last it should be fully socialized. These conditions largely determine the interests of the period. The sugges¬tions below seek to point out some special opportunities of the teachers of pupils of the earlier of these ages. The interests that are mentioned do not belong to these periods of development alone, nor should it be under¬stood that other types of stories are not to be used. During the first stage of adolescence, and particularly at its beginning, the hero-story is perhaps more attractive than any other. This interest is stronger in boys, but usually appears in girls as well. The chief special requisite for successful stories of this type is that they should center in a strong, forceful character whose achievements form the material of the tale. The char¬acter that appeals is the one that achieves obvious success. Later the victories of defeat will win due appre¬ciation; now it is the man who brings things to pass who stirs the enthusiasm of youth. His interest is just shifting from the world of things to that of person¬ality, and as he still retains much of the old standards of judgment, what a man does bulks quite as large as what he is. Nature's purpose here is very obvious. Unconsciously to himself the youth is selecting the models that are to shape his own life. The love of the sensational and dis¬taste for the commonplace are not inconsistent with the plan. It is in adolescence that such new steps in development as the race is yet to take will be accom¬plished, and nature now seeks to stir in every one the impulse to rise above the common level and do surpassing things. Hence the impossible hero does not repel and may have a real pedagogical value. Nature makes pro¬vision a little later for the correction of such misconcep¬tions as may arise, after the moral stimulus has been received. Certain forms of this interest seem to defeat the educa¬tional end, for too often the boy turns to the "nickel novel" in preference to literature of a higher moral grade. The pugilist, the border ruffian, the highway¬man, or the bandit seems more attractive than the more dignified figures who appear on the pages of his Sunday- school book. Here nature seems to lead him astray, but a careful study of the boy's attitude, and of the books themselves, shows that this interest is not even due to the lawlessness of immaturity, but rather to the ad¬miration for strong characters whose most prominent traits are physical prowess, fortitude, courage, loyalty, and honor — a crude form of real honor, though it be honor among thieves. These are the qualities that make the real hero, and most of them are essential traits. Really it is not his vices but his virtues that the lad admires in the immoral hero of the tale. It is our failure to set before him good men of heroic mold that turns him to this harmful literature. Have a hero he must. If he finds him here there is danger, though it is his virtues that really attract. The inexperienced youth, deprived of his heritage of stories of the noble lives of those who have gone before, identifies the immoral conduct with the courageous spirit that is back of it, and seeks to achieve his own manhood by emulating the deed. The teacher owes it to every youth to bring him many a tale of the noble, the brave, and the true. This apparently degenerate interest often brings the teacher the very opportunity that he has long desired. A poorly-trained public-school teacher was conducting certain investigations in child-study under the direction of the educational authorities of the state. Each pupil was asked to indicate what person he most admired and why. The worst boy in the school wrote the name of a young man who had stopped a railroad train and single-handed robbed the passengers and made his escape uninjured. The teacher said indignantly, " If you were he you would go to prison." "I don't care," said the boy, "I'd rather go to prison than to this school. He was the bravest one among them anyhow." What a pathetic revelation of his vague but bitter consciousness that his life was misinterpreted and wronged, and of his admiration for the virtues that really make a man! The teacher reported it as a case of hopeless lack of the moral sense. Had she introduced him to but a score of the line of heroes that stretches from the days of King Arthur to those of Jack Binns of the Republic, she might have seen his life transformed. With the younger pupils of this age the stories of legendary heroes are perhaps most effective, though it would be error to use them exclusively. There should be a gradual transition in emphasis from such to histori¬cal characters and from these to the men of to-day. There is also a similar development of interest from the startling and spectacular to the less conspicuous heroism of every-day life. In all these stories concreteness of presentation should be the aim, but the real emphasis should be on the char¬acter that inspires the deed rather than on the act itself or even the consequences that follow it. Particularly in the latter part of the first stage of adolescence, when biographical stories will be especially prominent, the focus of attention should be further shifted from the traits of character which inspire the deeds to the struggles and choices which shape character itself. This will be accomplished largely by telling of the really critical events of a life and giving clear indication of the alterna¬tive lines of conduct that are open. Thus the youth is helped to see how victories over self are usually the key to victories over men. In addition to the classic stories of legend, history, and fiction, modern biography will afford much material for the story-teller's use. An especially rich field for the teacher of religion is found in missionary biography. The one-volume life of John G. Paton is a good though imperfect example of what should be done in adapt¬ing such literature to the youth. Some day Church history will be rewritten, not from the standpoint of the devel¬opment of doctrine, but of the conquest of the world for Christ and of Christian heroism in general. Then a storehouse of fresh and valuable material will be opened to the teacher. Meanwhile there are treasures for those who will search. Through the first stage of adolescence nature's aim seems to be chiefly to develop virtues of the more egoistic type, such as have been indicated above, but at the close of this period the more unselfish feelings become promi¬nent, and during the middle stage they should assume the dominant place. This change opens the way for the introduction of stories of moral heroism of another type. Through most of early adolescence the stories should incite to triumph over difficulties, self-mastery, and loyalty to friends; now they should more and more inspire the hearer for self-sacrifice and service and even love for enemies. It is in the later stages of adolescence, however, that this altruistic interest culminates, though it commonly wakens several years earlier in the girls than in the boys. , THE STORY - INTERESTS OF LATER ADOLESCENCE As has been already indicated early adolescence seems, in nature's plan, to be a time when the youth is to form such ideals and engage in such disciplinary training as will best develop his own personality, chiefly on the egoistic side. But this gives him only a part of his equipment to meet the requirements of life. The later stages of the period prepare for his adjustment to social life and for the service of the social group. The change from the more selfish to the more altruistic relationship with society proceeds gradually and is largely furthered by the development of new spontaneous interests. Every transition period in human development is one of especial importance to the educator, for it offers two possibilities of surpassing significance in relation to his aims: on the one hand it provides opportunity for exceedingly rapid progress toward the ends he seeks; on the other, if environment and training are unfavorable, there is the danger of a permanent or long-continued arrest of development at the stage from which nature now seeks to promote the child. One of the special interests of middle adolescence, which while largely egoistic in spirit leads away from the self-centered life, is that in romantic love. This is especially prominent and perhaps almost the dominant feeling at fourteen to sixteen or seventeen years of age in girls and sixteen to eighteen or nineteen years in boys. The appearance of love between the sexes before this period of life seems to be abnormal, and when it occurs is probably usually due to unwise stimulation by those who are older. Now the beginnings of this attitude naturally appear, and one of its first manifesta¬tions is the new interest in sentimental literature. The self-consciousness which is so rapidly developing at this time often produces a shyness which at first hinders any direct and intimate association with individuals of the other sex outside of the necessary round of daily life; so that often influential ideals have been accepted and the attitude toward these matters has been preformed by litera¬ture and observation when the actual association begins. This means danger for the unguided youth and oppor¬tunity for the intelligent teacher. Love is so important a factor in human life that only the most thoughtless teacher or parent would think it a trivial matter to attempt to guide its first manifestations. The choices and the conduct which are determined by it influence the happiness and the welfare of the individual as largely as any that he makes. If education is to be at all complete much wise guidance must be given to this emotion as it begins to assert itself in the individual life. A wealth of very valuable story material is available for teachers who can shape their stories from the rough, and not a few choice tales are ready for the novice's use. Such a splendid illustration as Annie Fellows Johnston's beautiful story of The Three Weavers may well serve as the classic example of the latter kind. One could wish that no girl might grow out of her girlhood without hearing it again and again. It would seem that none could fail to respond to the charm of its form and the appeal of its message. This is a story written with the very aim urged above, and one that splendidly fulfils its purpose. But there are hundreds of others, usually of the realistic type, embedded in our general literature, which have great value for the same purpose. Many who read these words acknowledge a lifelong debt of gratitude to Miss Muloch, George Macdonald, George Eliot, or others of the men or women who have written purely and truly of love. Those who have such a memory need no argument as to the power of the story here. Such as had no similar experience in youth can¬not estimate the influence that the story-teller may here exert upon other lives. But the appearance of love in the emotional life of youth has a far larger indirect influence upon character than most of the more thoughtful teachers and parents suppose. Anthropologists tell us that man rose from the savage and barbarian states largely through the influence of woman. It was she who tamed and civilized him. While he hunted and fought she developed the domestic arts and so introduced him to the industrial life. Again, when she ceased to be his servant and be¬came his lady-love and mistress of his home she trained him in a hundred refinements and virtues that he would hardly have discovered for himself. What the age of chivalry did for the race nature seeks to accomplish in the individual during middle adolescence, and she uses much the same means. About this central impulse of love are grouped other and more directly ethical feelings, and together they guide the life. Stories that are true to life commonly reveal these in their interplay and so touch the wider life of the hearer. Hence it is that the best stories of love stir the moral nature to its depths and often have a tremendous influence upon the shaping of character. With the clean-cut memory of a few stories that were full of truth and power and that had a bracing and uplifting influence upon the whole moral nature, most of us have a vague recollection of other stories that we read at this period of life, perhaps by dozens or scores. These were books that appealed to the sentimental attitude of youth, but which divorced love from real life, and which offered no example worthy of imitation and suggested no ideals that would inspire to better living. This is not usually classed as immoral literature because the fault seems to be only a negative one, but " unmoral " is too weak a term to describe its influence upon youth. This indeed is often overbalanced by a single book of the kind just mentioned, but such influence as they do have is exerted at a critical time when failure to make rapid advance to higher levels means arrest of moral development. Hence there is real danger here. As in case of the " nickel novel " a little earlier in adolescence, we can never eliminate such stories from the experience of youth by simply declaiming against them. We must substitute the literature of pure and healthy sentiment for that of frothy sentimentality. To this better type of story the heart of youth does respond, and "out of the heart are the issues of life." A less frequent but when it appears a much more serious danger-point is in what the purveyors cm im¬moral literature and that which verges upon the immoral term "French novels," though many of them are not of French origin and resemble the literary masterpieces after which they are named only in that they present with the same frankness the gross and degenerate phases of the passion which should uplift and glorify the whole of human nature. Good stories of pure love go far to create the habit of moral cleanliness which will make this as disgusting as any other form of filth. By guiding the choice of books many a teacher has helped his pupils here, and the opportunity is too great to be lightly regarded by any one who is interested in the moral welfare of youth; but it is for story-telling that the plea is made at this time. The good story, if it is well told, gains as much in the telling for the adolescent at for the child. A single suitable test will convince the Aerie of this. But there are hindrances to the practise other than mere doubt as to its value. The chief difficulty Is doubtless that most of the stories that appeal to the intermit under discussion are too long for oral use. litre it is that faithful practise in such analysis and reconstruction of stories as was urged in the earlier chapters of this book will especially serve the teacher. At least one in four of the really good novels will admit of such selection and condensation of material as will make them suitable for our special use. Often the most tignificant portion of a story appears in a single chapter. In such cases one who has accustomed himself to the making over of stories to suit his special needs will not find it a difficult matter to so outline the really necessary preceding and following portions of the story as to make it serve his purpose. When a larger portion of the story is of really vital significance the task is more difficult, hut if the story is worth while the result will justify the effort. Interest in the purely unselfish life of service for others finds considerable manifestation in middle adolescence, but it is after the seventeenth or eighteenth year that it reaches its larger development. So strong is the instinctive tendency toward altruism that often self- sacrifice becomes a pleasure, and is sought almost as an end in itself. Now it is that the story of Jesus will go home to the heart with irresistible power, if it be but simply told. Let us learn to tell it as we would another tale, studying its elements, shaping it with care, telling it with the feel¬ing that it stirs in our own hearts, and leaving it to do its work. Sometimes we do well to emphasize the human side of the life of Jesus. It is not always theology that the youth needs most. Surely there are many times when a philosophical analysis of the plan of salvation is not as valuable as the simple narration of how that plan was manifested to men. But it is not to religion alone that we must turn for the story of self-sacrifice for others. The popular novels, the daily papers, and the incidents of life about us offer material that will meet the teacher's needs. One who will faithfully prepare one such story and present it to a group of older young people will hardly need urging to repeat the experiment. Best of all stories for this period of life are those that while they appeal to these interests in romantic and unselfish love at the same time stimulate the higher ambitions and aspirations of youth and put the strongest emphasis upon the shaping of character through the denial of baser impulses and choice of the nobler way at the crises of life.